


maybe if i tell myself enough

by persephonie



Category: New Girl
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dialogue Heavy, Drunk Dialing, F/M, Getting Back Together, Light Angst, Post-Season/Series 06, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:54:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26408299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephonie/pseuds/persephonie
Summary: Jess is in Portland, avoiding him at all costs. Nick leaves her a string of inebriated voicemails.
Relationships: Jessica Day/Nick Miller
Comments: 3
Kudos: 81





	maybe if i tell myself enough

**Author's Note:**

> Set after 6x20, canon compliant but with a slightly different ending.

The first voicemail she receives is a friendly, classic Nick Miller check-in, and his voice is all firm and vigour and just so _Nick_ that she doesn’t hear the mull of whiskey behind it.

 _“… anyway, Jess, I really wish you’d call me back.”_ Jess ignores the weird flip her stomach does at the sound of her name in his voice, all low and breathy like that. She presses the phone to her ear. _“Or at least answer my texts. It’ll make me feel good about topping up my phone credits.”_

She bites back a laugh, feeling warm at the thought of a grumpy Nick marching to the nearest store (because God forbid Nick Miller would ever ask any of the guys for their help to recharge his phone online), eyeing the workers as they fiddled with his phone, and then cursing all the way home.

She doesn’t call him back.

(She also doesn’t respond to any of his texts, but she does have a list of notes on her phone where she’s drafted at least twenty unsent messages by now. _Twenty-one._ )

* * *

_“Hey, Jess.”_ Silence, a little too long that Jess very nearly clicks the _End_ button. _“I, uh, I don’t—I don’t know why you’re still not picking up but…”_

Jess curls up in her bed, burying her face in her knees, pulling the covers up over her head and feeling slightly disgusted with herself, not wanting to hear the rest of the voicemail but pressing the phone to her ear anyway.

 _“… I really need to talk to you. Please, Jess…”_ She hears Nick sigh, followed by his familiar laugh. _“To be honest, I don’t know why I’m calling you about this. I mean, Reagan’s here…”_

Jess’ heart sinks. For a crazy, short-lived minute, she allowed herself to forget about Reagan, and Reagan-and-Nick, and Reagan being Nick’s live-in girlfriend, and that being the reason why she’s hiding out—hanging out—in Portland in the first place.

 _“… but she doesn’t get it, and I just wanted to talk to someone who’d understand.”_ Another pause. _“So, I saw a seagull in the backseat of a moving car today! Can you believe that? I mean, jeez, that guy’s in for a surprise, huh?”_

He’s laughing again, harder than before, and his excitement washes over Jess all snug and bear-hug that she finds herself laughing along.

_“Anyway, call me back. Just wanted to say I miss ya, and I—”_

She clicks the _End_ button and tosses her phone aside, where it lands with a thud underneath the bed.

* * *

The third comes together with a fourth, fifth, six, _holy…_

Jess stares at her phone. It’s eight in the morning, and the wave of voicemails arrived between 3.38 AM and 3.52 AM, with the last one (ninth) timed at 5.23 AM.

 _“Jeeesssss,”_ was the first one. Just her name, the one syllable dragged on to eternity before it ends with an indignant groan. _“Jeeessssicaaaa…”_

 _“Jess-okay-look-I’m-racking-my-brain-trying-to-figure-out-what-I-did-that-made-you-so-mad-at-me-that-you-can’t-even-call-me-back.”_ The words are too close together and a little garbled so it sounds like word vomit, and she finally hears the whiskey in the husk of his voice. _“Jess, where are you? Are you even still in Portland?”_

Jess wants to cry out, or scream, or break something, but her dad’s still asleep in the next room, so she buries her head in her pillow instead and pretends that she’s only crying because she’s PMS-ing and her emotions are on a crazy high.

_“Hey, didja know that birds—OH MY GOD!—oh man, I thought that bird was gonna fly right at me, it’s like they can hear me! Ha-ha! Isn’t that crazy?”_

_“Jessica, Day,”_ Nick enunciates each syllable slowly, _“Day, Jessica. Jessica Day Day Jessica. Hey! Day! Jessica! Day—”_

_“Oh, I saw this dog on the street today. I couldn’t stop looking at it. It looked just like you, Jess. I’m not saying you look like a dog, but it was a cute dog, and it looked a lot like you. It had these big eyes, and it was real happy to see me… I think the owner thought I was crazy though, ’cause I kept staring at his dog, but it was just so cute…”_

_“Jeeeessss, I’m shor… I’m—I’m so shorry… I’m tryin’na…”_

She clicks on the last voicemail. He’s sober on this one, which is somehow worse.

 _“Hey. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, Jess. I don’t know why you’re mad at me, and I didn’t think it would be worse than when I do know why you’re mad, but it is, so whatever it is I did to piss you off, I’m sorry. I just miss ya, ya nut.”_ She can’t stop herself, cries again into her already sloppy pillow. _“You don’t have to call me back. Or answer my texts. Or listen to the last couple of voicemails, even though I know you will. I don’t know how to delete these things. Can you even delete them? Anyway, just know that I’m sorry. I hope you come home soon.”_

* * *

Jess doesn’t tell anyone she’s home; nobody’s at the loft anyway, and she wanted to unpack her things—and whatever lingering feelings for Nick that she didn’t manage to get rid of—before seeing anyone. Her room is clean, and it looks like it hasn’t been lived in for a while, and she thinks about the call she had with Cece and Schmidt a few weeks back about Reagan practically moving into Nick’s bedroom, and _Whoa, this girl really did move around a lot, she knows how to keep a place spotless._

She’s unhooking her bra underneath her dress when the door to her room swings open, and _shit shit shit_ , she’s face-to-face with Nick, her dress lifted up her waist and her hand holding her bra in place, and it probably looks like she’s fondling her own boobs, and he’s staring at her, and at least a minute passes by before either one of them finally speaks.

“Nick!”

“Jess, you’re home,” Nick says, the corner of his mouth instinctively building up a grin before he forces it back into a thin line, “that’s great. I, uh—sorry I walked in on ya…”

He turns to go and before she realises, she’s running after him with her bra dangling loose underneath her dress. “Nick, wait.”

“Glad you’re back, Jess,” he says, not quite meeting her eyes. “Really, I am.”

“Nick, look, I can explain,” Jess starts, “well, actually I can’t, but I have a really good reason for disappearing like that, and I swear, Nick, I wasn’t mad at you—it doesn’t have anything to do with you at all, I mean, not completely…”

“So, why’d you leave? And why couldn’t you tell me?” Nick is looking right at her now. She flinches at the hurt in his voice and the guilt eats at her. “I was driving myself nuts thinking about what it is I did wrong, because you were talking to everyone else except me, and nobody would tell me why, either—”

“I know…” Jess sighs, “Look, Nick, I’m sorry I never called you back, or—or texted you, but I was dealing with some things that I couldn’t really talk about, and then my dad broke his toe, and…”

“Well, what is it? Jess, you know you can talk to me about anything. I thought we were past all that not-talking about our feelings.”

He’s looking at her, like, _really_ looking at her, his expression earnest, and Jess feels something settle in her gut. “We are.”

“So, why didn’t you call me back?”

“I couldn’t talk to you about it.”

“So you _ran away_ —”

“I didn’t run away!”

“Jess, you took off to Portland, with _zero_ contact, where you stayed for… for God knows _how_ long, and if you think you can just come back here out of the blue and bat your huge, pretty eyes at me—”

“Oh, come on, Nick,” Jess cuts him off, “you’re fine.”

“No, not fine,” Nick says, his voice breaking a little, and damn it all if Jess doesn’t _almost_ lose her cool completely, “I really needed you.”

“Damn it, Nick!” Jess stomps her foot. She knows it’s immature, but she doesn’t care. “I’m not doing this. I can’t do this. I thought I could, but clearly this has been a huge mistake, so, I’m leaving. I’m going.”

“You can’t do _what_? What is it?”

“I CAN’T TALK ABOUT IT!”

“ _You_ can’t talk about it? You, Jessica Day, can’t talk about what it is you’re feeling? You talk about your feelings all the time! And now you suddenly _can’t talk_ about it?”

Nick stares incredulously at her. She makes the mistake of meeting his eyes, and there’s a way that Nick is staring at her that makes the back of her neck heat up and her heart pound like crazy. She turns in a huff, walking out of the room.

“ _Where_ do you think you’re going?”

“Back to Portland!” Jess yells back, her bouncy hair already disappearing from his sight. “I’ll break my dad’s _other_ toe if I have to!”

“JESSICA!” Nick marches out of room after her. “Jess, come _back_ here.”

“Nick, I can’t talk to you right now. I have to go.”

“No, you don’t.”

Nick takes hold of her elbow and swivels her round to face him, and suddenly they’re back in the hallway some two years ago, looking at each other a little too intently, their gaze falling to each other’s lips, heartbeats picking up speed, and Nick would definitely kiss her right there if she weren’t trying to yank her arm away.

“Jess, I think I deserve an explanation.”

Jess finally stops fidgeting and looks at him. She takes him in; the tired eyes, the frustration in his voice, the slump in the way he walks, this somewhat unrecognisable, eager-to-talk-about-his-feelings Nick, and her chest expands. She becomes unexpectedly aware of how quiet the loft is.

“Nick,” Jess takes a deep breath, “where’s Reagan?”

“Reagan?” He looks puzzled. “Reagan and I broke up weeks ago.”

“What?” Her stomach does a weird flip. “Wait, Nick, I… I didn’t—”

“Did you get my voicemails?” Nick asks, and she nods slowly. “The one about the seagull in the backseat?”

“Yeah, but—”

“I wanted to talk about it with Reagan,” Nick explains, “and she couldn’t be _less_ interested. I mean, I get it, it’s a dumb story about a seagull, but she didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to talk about anything! And damn it, Jess, I realised…

“I realised I _want_ to talk about that stuff. I _want_ to come home to my girlfriend and lie in bed with her and talk about my day, especially the dumb stuff, like—like a seagull in the backseat of a car, or…”

“Or a dog that looks like me?”

“Exactly.” The grin he’d been hiding breaks out in full force across his face.

“Nick, I’m still in love with you,” Jess finally blurts, and his smile vanishes as he looks at her closely. “I never stopped, I think. That’s why I—”

“Ran away?”

“I didn’t run away,” Jess says, realising they’re coming full circle, “okay, fine, maybe I did, but can you blame me? You were so happy, and I was so miserable, and I didn’t want to… I _couldn’t—_ ”

He shuts her up with a kiss. Except it’s not just any kiss; it’s the Nick Miller kiss, the one she never did get over the first time, or the second time, or the countless times after that. The hands-all-over kiss, the I-want-you-and-I-want-you-now kiss, and oh _God_ , she’s missed this, she’s missed him, and she doesn’t ever want to let go.

“I love _you_ , Jessica Day,” Nick mutters in between kisses, “I never stopped loving you, either.”

“God, what a bunch of idiots we are,” Jess giggles.

“ _Happy_ , my ass.” Nick eyes her patronisingly. “You really couldn’t hear how miserable I was?”


End file.
